We saw it first at CTIA, one of the few devices launched there, and after a long wait it's here; the Droid Incredible 4G LTE by HTC will be arriving at Verizon Wireless stores July 5th and available for $149 on-contract, after a $50 mail-in rebate. Our review sample hit the door this morning, and we're fast at work getting our review done. In the meanwhile we have some glamour shots and a little family portrait.

For those that don't recall, the DINC 4G (as we'll colloquially refer to it) is an off-shoot of the HTC ONE S, and features Qualcomm's Snapdragon S4 dual-core SoC, the ubiquitous MSM8960, though here clocked at 1.2GHz. The Droid Incredible aesthetic has never been one of litheness, and that persists here. The body is 11.7 mm at its thickest, and the screen is a compact 4.0 inches, though the benefit in pixel density is perceptible. The super LCD qHD screen is actually quite impressive, with subjectively good color representation and incredible viewing angles. And, of course, our trusty Snapdragon S4 comes with an LTE radio on its cool running and compact die. With a smaller screen, lower core clock and fairly beefy 1700 mAh battery, this could be a compact all-day data hog. We'll let you know when our full review goes up.

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13 Comments

I'm SO glad to see this one has a removable battery and SD card. I'm getting so tired of every company following Apple's lead with their halo phones trying to squeeze $50-$100 out of you for a dinky $5 upgrade in flash memory or ~$80 to replace your battery a year from now when the li-on only holds a 50% charge. These little $$$ grab tactics are a plague to the consumer and getting more and more common. After owning an HP Touchpad which also has an inaccessible battery and no sd slot, I've made the decision to NEVER buy another device again without those two features. Even though the CPU runs at a slower speed, I'd take this version over a One X any day.

I was sad to see the Nexus 7 went the Apple route too. That's just NOT the way to start off in market so heavily dominated by Apple guys. You gotta one up the competition. If you've made the decision to sell the device for cost anyway as a way to break into the market, why get greedy and try to squeeze the extra $50 out for another puny 8GB?Reply

The One X has a removable battery unless I'm wildly mistaken, and honestly, you're going to have to get over this. Consumers make up the majority of the audience these companies sell to, and the less things customers can do to mess up the phone, the more profitable it is. If you know *how* to use a Li-Ion battery, it will last a very long time. If you run it to zero every day, then it doesn't take a genius to know it's going to stop holding a charge.Reply

You are in fact wildly mistaken. Neither the One S nor X have removable batteries or microSD slots, the EVO LTE (One X offshoot) has the latter but not the former. Removable batteries aren't just about device longevity either, some users can easily blow thru a full charge in half a day and they'd rather swap batteries and get back to 100% in a minute than hunt down an outlet or carry an external battery pack and wait for a recharge. Im managing alright with my EVO LTE, but I do hope the non removable trend doesn't completely take over. Reply

So, there's a lot to that question, but the water on these things is muddied by the price compression that living in a market ruled by contract subsidies. Is this, 25% less phone than the SGS3? Maybe, so. But you also lose the sleek form factor of the mini-tablet competitors. I'm a big fan of smaller phones, and have loved my OG DINC, but there's no doubt that US buyers have a much harder time telling the difference between a good phone and the best phone, because they are priced so close together. Reply

I'm still rocking one of the original Droid Incredibles and it works like a champ. I'm not a poweruser by any stretch of the word so not having all the latest bells and whistles is no major loss. The thing is solid as a rock, its the *perfect* size (not a mini-tablet), its survived a couple dunks in the pool, daily battery life is still measured in hours (not minutes) and the camera is decent. So if this new version can maintain the same quality and improve on performance, resolution and battery life then its a BIG win in my book.Reply